New athletic director making strong first impression

Scott Swanson

Steve Brown grew up in Iowa, so he understands wrestling.

Looks like one, too, with his stocky, muscular frame toned by years of lifting weights.

But his first love has always been basketball.

“I never saw a shot I didn’t like,” said Brown, 59, Sweet Home High School’s new athletic director.

He admits he doesn’t really fit the classic image of a hoops specialist, and he had to ride the pine “most of the time,” but when the choice came down between wrestling and basketball, he knew which way he had to go.

“Being from Iowa, I understand wrestling,” said Brown, whose jovial personality comes out frequently in conversation. “I wrestled in junior high. Then I figured, ‘Those guys work way too hard.’”

Brown arrives in Sweet Home from Grants Pass, where his position there as a teacher in a residential treatment facility for youngsters with behavioral problems was eliminated due to budget cuts.

“I was last to arrive and first to go,” he said.

Before that he taught in La Pine and coached in the Los Angeles area for some 20 years, coaching football, boys and girls basketball, baseball and track and field along the way. Those were the four sports he played in high school. He said baseball was played in the summertime in Vinton, Iowa, where he graduated from Washington High School in 1971.

More recently, his sport of choice has been power lifting.

In a little over 15 years of competition in the sport, he has won 11 world championships titles in five powerlifting federations. He holds multiple world and Oregon state records and has squatted 600.75 pounds, bench pressed 529 pounds and deadlifted 628. His best total (a combination of those events) is 1,730 pounds.

“I brought up 800 pounds of weights, a rack and sleds that I had of my own,” he said of his arrival in Sweet Home. “The P.E. teachers were really happy.”

After growing up in the Vinton area – population 4,900, where his parents were pastors in the Foursquare Church, Brown headed for Southern California, where he graduated from Life Bible College, then earned a bachelor’s degree from Azusa Pacific and a master’s degree from the University of La Verne. He also earned an administrative credential and served as dean of students at 2,500-student San Gabriel High School before moving to Grants Pass.

When he arrived in Sweet Home he discovered some common background with several coaches and teachers here, he said. Principal Keith Winslow attended APU, Assistant Principal Tim Porter and he went to the same church in Southern California – though they didn’t know it, track and football assistant Randy Whitfield attended Life Bible College.

“It’s just been amazing, all the things we have in common,” Brown said. “Kind of the six points of whatever connections.”

Another connection with Sweet Home before he came was his wife Debra’s job in Southern California. The Browns lived in the Bend area from 1989 through 1999 when a friend of theirs, Jared Roth, who once pastored Cornerstone Fellowship in Sweet Home, was named general supervisor of the Foursquare International Church. Debra Brown was asked to be his assistant, so they moved back to California.

The Browns have three children and one grandchild. Debra, who grew up in Grants Pass, is preparing their house to rent and plans to move to Sweet Home Oct. 1, Steve Brown said.

“Her job is way harder than mine.”

Coming into a school district that has experienced its own financial woes, including cuts in athletic funding, he said his first challenge is figuring out how things work.

“Every school district is different so learning the ins and outs is tricky.”

He said his transition here has been aided by an able assistant, Kendra McCaslin.

“If it weren’t for her, I’d be dead in the water already,” Brown said. “My wife told her to keep me in line. That’s good. I have two bosses.

“I told the coaches I’m not a master of everything but I’m here to serve. Give me your requests and cut me some slack when it takes me a while to figure out how to do it.”

So far, he said, Sweet Home feels like a “great fit.”

“Everybody has been so nice and everybody says I’m going to love Sweet Home,” he said. “I say I am loving Sweet Home. Every day just gets sweeter and sweeter.

“At football practice the other day I was sitting behind home plate and I took a picture for a family. I thought, ‘Look at this, this is a field of dreams. Where else can you sit in center field, next to the covered bridge, and watch football practice?”

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